More than a fifth of equities revenues made last year by US investment bank Jefferies came from its rescue investment in Knight Capital, the high-frequency broker which almost collapsed after a software error.

The $151.9m boost from Knight emerged in the bank’s annual 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As a result of the rescue, total equities revenues were $642.4m for the year to November 30, 2012, up 8% on the $593.6m for the comparable prior year.

Jefferies said in the filing that, without Knight Capital, equity revenues would have dropped 17%.
The equities revenues are in addition to the $20m that Jefferies made in the third quarter of last year for advising Knight on its rescue financing.

On August 6 last year, Jefferies agreed to buy preferred stock in Knight Capital for $125m in cash. On August 29, Jefferies exercised its stock conversion options giving it a 44% economic stake in the firm and 22% of the votes.

In December, Knight agreed to be bought by Getco, one of the largest of the high-frequency traders, in a deal which valued Knight at $1.4bn.

Jefferies is advising Getco and has arranged the financing for the acquisition, which will earn it further fees when the deal completes.

Last week Knight said it had completed a corporate restructuring that would result in a 5% cut in its global workforce, or about 76 staff, based on headcount at the end of last year.

Jefferies’ annual filing also said that the firm experienced trading losses in just four of the total 253 trading days in its fiscal 2012 year.